August 26, 2013

IT Expo Heats Up Las Vegas with Jeff Bonforte of Yahoo

Many of us are traveling today and tomorrow for TMCNet's IT Expo in Las Vegas that runs the bulk of this week. For me, it's a chance to connect with friends and industry associates, moderate a few panels, and see what's new at Startup Camp, which to me, is the most exciting part of the event.

This StartUp Camp's Keynote is Jeff Bonforte, now at Yahoo (again) in a role of VP, Product. He was part of the acquihire spree that's going at Yahoo, under Marisa Meyer's leadership. Forget the fact that Jeff is one heck of a developer, he's also a killer leader at getting things done. My money is that Xobni was bought largely to get Bonforte and some of his team, but also to give Jeff back what he left behind when he left Yahoo to run Xobni. That was the leadership of their communications product line.

Bonforte's the ideal choice and now, as without any buffering (Brad Garlinghouse was over that group before) he can bring the kind of innovation into mail, messaging, voice and video by basically starting over or taking the pieces and parts that are there and doing things right.

A few years ago, after Bonforte left, Yahoo outsourced their voice platform to Jajah, now part of Telefonica. That opens up all kinds of possibilities as well, but Bonforte, who has never been into anything but software and the cloud, is likely going to cook up some very mobile, social and real time communications that draws upon all of the rich, untapped resources, or underutilized ones that Yahoo has.

He's a great pick for Yahoo, and a masterful pick to Keynote StartUp Camp...see you Tuesday.